Night Owl Cards

Hi. I think I've done a decent enough job conveying how important my childhood is in my hobby of collecting baseball cards. It's why I am collecting today. If I didn't collect cards as a kid, there's a good chance I wouldn't be collecting now. There is no bigger thrill for me in this hobby than finding a card that connects me to the joyful moments I had as a kid when I pulled or looked at or played with that card. The vast majority of those childhood memories are contained in 1975. The years 1974-77 are prime territory for childhood card memories, too, but 1975 ... well, 1975 I could dedicate an entire blog to all of the card memories created that year. In fact, I did . I had it pretty good as a 9-year-old boy. Topps produced one of its most colorful and memorable sets of all-time during my first year of collecting. It's no wonder I'm still collecting now. Also that year, Topps decided to produce a parallel set to its main set and market it in sel...

I am not a crusader. When I was a kid, I'd watch as my father would get into "discussions" with sales people about this item or that and often -- not all the time, mind you -- get what he wanted. The older I got, the more aggravated I became with this technique, and although I've been known to stand up for what I believe in, most of the time I just let it go, because honestly ... I'm lazy. Or dislike talking to people. One of the two. Probably both. It took a page, a ridiculous nine-pocket plastic page that protects bits of cardboard, for me to get noisy. I have been campaigning for a page to house 1975 Topps style minis -- cards that are 3 1/8-by-2 1/4 inches -- since I found out that the old pages for that size of a card didn't exist anymore. For probably 3 or 4 years on this blog I've mentioned that there needs to be a page that fits these cards. Once I got on Twitter and connected with UltraPro, that's when I saw progress. As Topps began...